An inextensible association scheme associated with a 4-regular graph (Q5936103)

It is known that the scheme associated with a graph is an association scheme iff the graph is strongly regular. Consider the problem of extending such an association scheme to a superscheme in the case of a coloured, directed graph. If a presuperscheme associated with a graph is of height \(t\), then the graph satisfies the \((t+3)\)-vertex condition. This paper shows that the reverse conclusion does not hold. It provides an example of a coloured, directed graph which satisfies the 4-vertex condition, but whose presuperscheme cannot be extended beyond the bottom (\(0\)-th) level. In particular, the example exhibits an association scheme that cannot be extended to a presuperscheme of positive height.